Dear Esther

If you play the game, get to the end, and look back and say, "What just happened?", that was intended. (Spoiler Alert)This game is about a man searching his past, retracing his steps over and over and over again, trying to find the little detail he was missing to piece together the meaning for that most tragic of events that occurred in his life. He is trying to find the reason for losing his dear Esther, trying to find purpose lest he drown himself in grief. His inner war for dulling the pain and yet seeing the facts clearly are themes echoed in almost every monologue, such as swallowing the pills yet wishing to see soberly. This duality drives him as he trudges through his subconscious time and again in hopes he might tell himself the answer he hides from himself. The throbs of his legs and his kidney stones are symbols of the memory of the awful event that continually plagues his mind like a throbbing paid, that tragedy on the road he willingly endures time and again as he looks for tiny details such as counting the gulls or the miles or micrometers and maybe finding a connection so as to bring purpose to his tragedy. Never truly coming to a final conclusion, he always arrives at the same end which drives him back to the memory for answers.And that, my friends, is the purpose of your confusion. You saw all the answers in front of you but still could not understand. This will drive you to go back to the beginning whether on your computer screen or in your mind, walk through the events again as to maybe gather another fragment of the mystery you are trying to piece together. And as you subject yourself to the story again, you find yourself becoming the man you have been observing this whole time, revisiting over and over again to find your answers to put purpose to what you have observed. In fact your observations will then truly turn into experience, and when that happens, the creators of Dear Esther have achieved their goal.Well played, ChineseRoom, well played.